Hollywood Hype: A Sexy Billionaire Romance (The Director's Assistant Book 3) Read Free Page A

didn’t have the strength to deal with it anymore . It would be so much easier to give Janus the tape. It would be so much easier to just get on with the rest of my life. Archer wouldn’t care—he obviously had other things on his mind. Why should I?
    Let him have his little romantic lunch date—he was doing what was best for him, it was time I did the same for Mom and me. I would give the tape to Janus, first thing on Monday morning.
    Mom didn’t ask questions when she saw me walk in with red, blotchy eyes, and a rash reaching above the neck of my blouse. She just patted me on the hand, told me where the egg noodles were, and then went to select a movie to put on the DVR.
    God bless Mom—I loved her so much .
    I walked into the kitchen to fix myself a bowl of buttered noodles—my favorite childhood treat. By the time they were cooked, a full stick of creamy butter soaking slowly through them, my eyes were a little less red.
    I flopped down onto the sofa; Mom looked at me with concern. At least she still pictured Archer on a pedestal. She thought he farted rainbows. He was all she’d talked about, last night, giddy as a schoolgirl whenever his name came up in conversation. I guess that’s what a super considerate private screening of your favorite movie at Grauman's Chinese Theatre bought you. One might almost call it sweet.
    “…Josie?”
    “Huh? Oh, so sorry Mom, what were you saying?”
    “I said, you’re in a fine mood today. Feel like talking?”
    “Can we just watch a movie, please?”
    Mom raised an eyebrow, but acquiesced. An old black and white Warner Bros. logo appeared on the TV to the sound of trumpets, then the opening titles of our movie faded in over a map of Africa. Casablanca. How appropriate—a romance about secret documents that ultimately drove two lovers apart. I settled back to watch.
    The movie centered around Rick, the owner of an American nightclub in Casablanca, coming into possession of letters which would allow passage for two people through Nazi occupied Europe. The buyers of the documents were an old flame of his… and her new husband.
    By the end of the movie, tears were streaming down my cheeks—Rick loved Ilsa so much that he was willing to put her on a plane with her husband, instead of himself. ‘If you don't get in that plane you'll regret it. Maybe not today, maybe not tomorrow, but soon and for the rest of your life.’
    ‘But what about us?’
    ‘We'll always have Paris…’
    ‘... I said I would never leave you.’
    ‘And you never will.  But I've got a job to do, too.  Where I'm going, you can't follow… Now—here's looking at you kid.’
    Mom sighed as the closing credits rolled. “What a man. He gave up everything for her. Gives you hope in humanity, don’t you think—true love?”
    “Life’s not always like the movies, Mom,” I said softly.
    She was silent for a while, then pushed herself heavily off the couch and moved to sit beside me. Her joints popped softly as she sat back down, hand patting me on the knee. “Is everything okay with you and Archer?”
    I shifted uncomfortably. “What makes you think we’d have a problem? He’s my boss, Mom. That’s it.”
    Her eyes narrowed, her lips pursed. “It doesn’t take Basil Rathbone to see there’s something between you two. I noticed the way he looked at you the other night. And I also noticed the way you came bouncing in here the last time I saw you, hair all askew and a huge grin on your face; a nun escaped the convent.”
    “Mom!”
    “Hush child—listen to me. Whatever’s going on, know these two things.” She held up a finger. “First, I’ll always be here for you. You don’t have to talk to an old woman, but you do have to know you can, if you want to.”
    I nodded, tears springing suddenly to my eyes. She took a deep breath, and then held up a second finger. “Second. True love exists, but it ain’t easy. You’ve got to fight for it.”
    “Mom-”
    She cut me off. “No. I